Microsoft has fixed a bug that some Windows – – installations in the versions 20 H2 and 2004 affected and by the cumulative update KB 4592438 of December 8th 2020. Users who run the command line “chkdsk / f” reported that this operation corrupted the file system. In some cases, the systems could not be started afterwards.

The Windows on-board tool chkdsk is actually supposed to contain errors in the file system and bad hard disk sectors track down and repair. In the current case, the file system repair initiated by “chkdsk / f” apparently had the opposite effect. Microsoft has documented the problem in the support article for KB 4592438 in the section “Known issues in this update”.

Error correction and troubleshooting As can be seen from an addendum in the support article, Microsoft has now got the problem on “unmanaged” devices – those that are not updated in a company network via WSUS or SCCM – remotely remedied. It could take up to 24 hours for the changes to take effect; a restart might speed up the process.

How the remote correction works without a new update package is not clear from the article; A change in a registry entry by Microsoft is conceivable. For managed devices in corporate environments, however, a special group policy is available that must be downloaded and configured manually.

For devices whose Windows 10 no longer start due to damage caused by “chkdsk / f”, Microsoft provides step-by-step instructions for solving the problem in the “Known Issues” section. In summary, it is recommended that users start the command line via the repair environment that opens automatically after several boot attempts, restart a “chkdsk / f” process and then try a restart after entering “exit”. If the recovery selection opens again, a new “exit” should lead back to the operating system.

Repair hard drive – you can do that (heise tips + tricks) (ovw)